An innovation in a diploma program: the future potential of mentorship in nursing
Abstract
This paper reports on the processes used to facilitate the implementation of a mentored elective placement for final year nursing students and the results of the evaluative phase of this innovation. The mentors were experienced clinical practitioners who formed mentored relationships with final year students in a selected area of nursing practice and had been prepared for their role by a program organized and conducted by the Faculty. The evaluation phase incorporated the multi-method approach of triangulation to gather data during the implementation phase of the mentored placement. The results tend to be strongly supportive of a continuation of this innovation and were based on data gathered from both the mentor and mentee perspectives. The final evaluation tool aimed to assist in clarifying the role of the mentor and was administered to the mentees at the completion of the placement. Factor analyses of the mentees' responses generated four underlying constructs to mentorship, namely, the quality of the relationship, professional role acquisition, socialisation into the work role, and a need to promote mentor relationships in nursing.
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Study number one (1991–1995) was based upon the experiences and perceptions of 155 skilled practitioners and 300 students from three Colleges of Nursing and 45 interested practitioners, who volunteered to join the research at a later date because they were experienced assessors and mentors. Many themes and categories emerged. One in particular was that of the role of the practitioner who has been charged with the responsibility of assessing student performance on practice placement. Initial interviews with 155 practitioners of varying experience as assessors were used to design a questionnaire containing both context free and context specific items. Subsequent follow-up interviews were undertaken with both students and practitioners and non-participant observation of practitioners working with students were carried out.
The majority of students accepted the dual role and at times, even the triple role of assessors, mentors and/or supervisors forced upon practitioners, provided that the practitioners assessing them were well prepared and ‘trained’ as assessors, were perceived to be ‘fair’, ‘competent’, ‘skilful’ and ‘knowledgeable’ (Neary 1997a).
Study two (1992–1994) aimed to establish the process and outcomes of practitioner-teachers and mentorship in Wales, and was based on the data from a much extended period of semi-structured interviews with policy makers, managers, teachers and nurse practitioners (n = 360, 330 analyzed in detail) spanning 10 months, which gave an invaluable pictures of ongoing changes in the placement areas and the basis from which to construct a widely administered questionnaire (n = 1332) dealing with context-free and context-specific factors underpinning the definition of the mentor role, selection and relationship with students. Similar logic lay behind the use of reflective semi-structured diaries which asked 138 students and 133 practitioners to keep during practice placements. This study showed the practitioners readily adopted the term ‘mentor’ to describe their role in their relationship with students in clinical practice. How they were selected for this role proved to be more complex (Davies et al. 1994). for the purpose of this paper the data from both studies is merged to give a stronger and more focused picture of how both students and practitioners perceived their roles in the assessment and support systems which were in action at the time of the studies.